One of Our Wheelchairs is Missing 2- Con Club

 

After the rather dismal article I posted previously I thought I'd give you something more cheerful, a quirky anecdote from the annals of my HP service. I was on my way to a two-to-ten and walking along Windmill Road towards the JRH. I passed the Headington Conservative Club, like I did almost every day. It was as routine as brushing my teeth; therefore it was a bit of a surprise when a man came out and called to me. "Hey, aren't you a porter at the JR?" I don't know how he knew that; I wasn't in uniform and I didn't recognize the guy. It must be some sort of psychic aura I give off. "Yes." I replied. "You might be able to help; come with me." He led me inside, through the bar and out into a backroom where there was an Aunt Sally court. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, Aunt Sally is a simple pub game which involves throwing sticks at a peg standing on a pole.) Parked in the corner was a hospital wheelchair, one of the "original fleet" ones with rear wheel steering, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/09/acute-care-vehicles-1-original-fleet.html. "Isn't that one of yours?" he asked. It was indeed; it even had JRH PORTERS stencilled on the back. "How did it get here?" I asked. "Ain't got a clue, mate." he replied. "Can you take it back for us?" I wheeled it with me to the hospital. It wasn't easy pushing it along the street for the reasons I explain here in a more recent similar example: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/11/chair-saga.html. Luckily the distance was short, less than a mile. When I arrived I placed the chair in the pool with the others by main entrance. The senior wasn't sure how to write my task into the logbook; there is no entry for anything off site. In the end he just put: "13:15- 13:49, wheelchair, carpark L2 to L2 entrance, BEJ (my initials)." If the head porter or his deputies had asked me why the job took 34 minutes I'd just have to explain, but they never did.

"He Killed Himself cos of Her"

 

This is one of the most disturbing stories I've ever had to cover on the HPWA. A few years ago I bumped into an old colleague from the hospital, a civilian not a porter. He was a ward clerk on one of the medical levels that I used to get on well with. Like myself he had moved on to other things since we last spoke, yet he enjoyed reminiscing about life at the JRH. At one point in our conversation two names came up; one was a male nurse on one of the other med wards and another was a sister who was on the same ward. Both names were well known to me; I'll call the nurse "Fred" and the sister "Kath". We both spoke about Kath in disparaging terms because neither of us liked her. I asked my friend about Fred and whether he had heard how Fred was. My friend looked down sadly and said: "Oh, you haven't heard. I'm afraid he's dead." I was shocked. This was a man a good decade and a half younger than me and had no long-term illnesses that I was aware of. "I'm sorry to hear that." I replied and said a few words about Fred. I pointed out, with a bit of sentimental humour, that I hadn't envied him working with Kath every day. My friend nodded and said in a serious tone: "Not half! He killed himself cos of her." I was speechless. This was the first time my friend had mentioned that Fred's death had been suicide, let alone the reason behind it. "He left a note saying that he couldn't bear the way she was treating him anymore." What shocked and upset me the most about this conversation was the casual way my friend spoke. I got the feeling this wasn't the only time somebody he knew had taken his own life. What's more his tone indicated that he had come to regard suicide as normal, one of the unavoidable hazards of living, like lightning strikes or sinkholes. This normalization of suicide is horrific. I wondered how Kath had felt about this. Was she unaware of how harmful she was being, unable to understand the vulnerability of her victim; like I report here: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/08/unbreakable-rubber-balls.html? Possibly, but I think it's unlikely. I came across this video that contained nothing surprising and actually confirmed my own experience, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtXyoUb6M8. It's not just doctors who are very likely to be psychopaths, so are other people in clinical professions. What's more I think Edward Dutton is being too optimistic. His research does not include the phenomenon of pseudo-psychopaths, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/10/its-our-job.html. 

If Kath were a full-blown psycho then obviously she would not give a damn, but if she's a pseudo-psycho she also might feel very little concern. Pseudos are capable of empathy and guilt, but they rarely feel it. They tend to invent excuses and cop-outs to exonerate themselves in their own minds. It was only years later, when I thought back over this conversation, that the fact struck me that maybe my former ward clerk colleague is similar. He spoke about Fred's suicide so nonchalantly that it seemed to me he had rationalized it away too. Or maybe he was simply desensitized by it happening in his life so often. It turns out that, tragically and scandalously, suicide is the leading cause of death among twenty to thirty-four year olds; 16% of women and 27% of men, that's over a quarter. I don't know, but I suspect that in the National Health Service that figure is even higher; we know clinical depression is very high there. This should justify a state of emergency, that dedicated people taking the king's shilling to save lives end up giving up on their own. What has gone wrong with us?
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/12/hps-and-psychos.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/12/nhs-nurses-destroy-patients-doll.html.

...And it's Goodnight from that HP

 

I'm thinking of doing a regular slot on The Gas Spanner called something like "famous ex-hospital porter of the week". The latest addition to this most illustrious hall of fame is the comedy actor Ronnie Barker. (I must thank my friend and Spanner listener David for telling me about this.) Ronnie Barker was a versatile performer who was equally at home sit-coms, most notably Porridge, and the very long running sketch show he did with Ronnie Corbett, hence its title The Two Ronnies. I used to have the claim to fame that I lived in the house where he was born in 1929, but that's not true. He moved to 23 Church Cowley Road, Oxford when he was four years old, about 1933. Since I moved out, a blue plaque has been placed on the wall. I started watching Ronnie on TV when I was a child and always enjoyed his shows. The famous movie actor Alec Guinness was once asked which of his fellow thespians he admired the most. Everyone expected him to reply with the name of a Hollywood legend, but he said instead: Ronnie Barker. Ronnie was enormously talented. One of the best sketches he ever did with Corbett was their parody of The Professionals in which Barker plays a dark and sinister character obsessed with continuously drinking tea. He is based on John Le Carré's George Smiley, see: https://ok.ru/video/4292584016580. Anyway, on to the important stuff. Ronnie started out in drama like most actors, as an amateur and part-timer who aspired to greater success. In 1949 the theatre company he was touring with went bankrupt and he was forced to quit and get a day-job at the age of just twenty-one. He became a HP at the hospital today called the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford; in those days it was called the Wingfield-Morris Hospital. His service there affected him his whole life. He developed compassion and empathy while caring for the patients, some of whom had been struck down by polio. He cheered them up by performing impromptu comedy routines. It makes me think of Patch Adams, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKNh9e6QPJY. Ronnie Barker died in 2005 after a lifetime of brightening up people's lives, including my own. This was partly from his comedy, but also from his stint in our ancient and noble profession. I salute MEP&DBP Ronnie Barker.

Dr HP

 

As a childhood Doctor Who fan the fifth doctor took some getting used to. It's hard to imagine these days when the Doctors generally struggle to last two seasons, but back in the 70's and early 80's the Doctor simply was Tom Baker. I knew of no other, being too young to remember the first three incarnations. Baker portrayed the Time Lord for seven consecutive seasons, still by far the longest ever tenure. The fifth doctor was very different, a much younger man with blond hair and was usually dressed in cricket whites and a cream blazer. He had question marks on his collar to emphasize the enigmatic nature of the central character, along with a Panama hat. He took some getting used to, but eventually he won the hearts and minds of the fans. It amazes me that I've only just discovered that the actor who played him, Peter Davison, was also a HP. A friend of mine has discovered Davison's back-story where it clearly states that he did a number of jobs in his youth while starting out in drama part-time. One of those was a hospital porter. He was also an attendant in "Rose Cottage", a bit of a dead end job, as we used to say. As you can see from his bio in the above illustration, he dislikes rude people. I'm not surprised considering his occupational experience. He will know too much about that! Peter Davison entered civilian life permanently when he accepted the role of Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small, the TV adaptation of James Herriot's famous books about being a veterinarian in rural Yorkshire. Source: https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/All_creatures_great_for_the_new_Dr_Who. Doctor Who has changed enormously in recent years, completely for the worse. The idea of a portrayal of the central character winning any hearts and minds, of what few fans the series has left, is laughable. The travesties cast post-David Tennant have caused me to boycott the franchise altogether. Peter Davison is a nostalgic reminder of the golden age of Who, the time when quality on TV was still a thing; when thespians, writers and directors actually did their job well. Luckily, thanks to home media, all the gems of the previous Doctor Who catalogue are available to enjoy. Even if the BBC bans them... which is quite possible... they will be bootlegged. I'm proud that a HP was involved with that glorious historical artistic creation. I salute MEP&DBP Peter Davison.

Beware HP's Bearing Gifts!

 

The illustration above shows one of the most celebrated Roman statues in history. When the Laocoön Group was dug up in 1506 it astonished all those who saw it. The central figure in particular has been praised for being the ultimate depiction of human agony. Its facial expression and posture very skilfully project the animated feeling of suffering. The sculptor is unknown and the work could have been made at any time between about 200 BC and 70 AD. It was found under a vineyard in Rome and immediately moved to the Vatican museum where it remains on display to the present day. This life-size classic sculpture is based on a very old and famous Greek myth, the Siege of Troy. At the end of the Trojan War, the Greek attackers surrounded their enemies in the city of Troy, but the defenders were determined not to surrender. Therefore the Greeks came up with a cunning plan; they pretended to give up and go away, but they left behind a wooden sculpture in the shape of a giant horse. This was supposedly an act of chivalry, a tribute to the courage of their enemy. The Trojans were delighted and eagerly accepted the gift. However, the horse was hollow and inside was a contingent of heavily armed Greek troops. As soon as the horse had been moved inside the fortified walls of the city the Greeks burst out of their hiding place and attacked, conquering the final holdout of their enemy. However, there was one Trojan who saw through the trick and begged his fellow citizens not to fall for it. He was a priest called Laocoön and he warned the others with the classic line: "Beware Greeks bearing gifts!" The other Trojans did not believe him and any who might have been wavering were convinced to keep their mouths shut when Athena, the Greek goddess for war, sent a pair of sea serpents up from the depths. They crawled out of the water, grabbed Laocoön and his two sons and dragged them into the sea where they all perished. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZmTQIFA9fY.
 
I wonder if any readers will spot the cruel irony in this story before I explain it to you. Of all the villains in classical mythology, the Cyclopses, Minotaurs and gorgons, the worst fate of all is saved for the person who refuses to conform to society's agreed falsehoods. What's more it is this punishment above all others, more so even than Sisyphus, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/10/an-open-letter-to-richard-dawkins.html, that guided the hand of one of the best sculptors who ever lived. Laocoön is the ultimate example of what George Orwell talked about when he said that telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Perhaps a better reference is Joseph Goebbels, Germany's minister of propaganda under Adolf Hitler. Goebbels once said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can only be maintained for as long as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and military consequences of the lie. It therefore becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie; and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state." And, to be frank, one of those lies is that hospital porters are lowlifes and that to be one and proud of it is the truth enemy. This belief very quickly can reach the absurd extreme of the instinctive and violent rejection of those who challenge the belief. This is because there is a part of all of those believers who know there is another side to the story that, if told, would totally neutralize that precious deception. Another classic line from a more recent piece of fiction, the Wachowski's film The Matrix, is very telling indeed. The Morpheus character says: "You have to understand, most people are not ready to be unplugged; and many of them are so inured and so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it." I know this sounds arrogant of me, but I can't think of any other explanation. It fits like a glove when considering the behaviour of "Jack Shaw", see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html. This also explains why, in a health service that has an extraordinary and disgusting indolence when it comes to abysmal standards of service, they are willing to take up arms vigorously against people who merely disagree with the lies everybody else tells each other and are considered essential for maintaining the status quo. In that sense, I am the HPing Laocoön... Yes, I know, I was never attacked and drowned by sea serpents, but I'm sure if the OxRad Trust management had been granted the powers of the Greek gods they would have made sure those serpents would have coursing up the Isis the moment I was suspended. As it was they did punish me in as brutal a way as they could within their real abilities. What a sad state of affairs. What can be done to change things?
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/01/thirteen-years-on.html.

Under the Affluence of Incohol

 

I feel now is the right time to share another precious memory of my late friend Barry, see the background link for more. No special occasion, anniversary etc; I just find myself in the mood right now. This occurrence took place in 2003 during the Rugby World Cup. I went to Barry's house to watch the quarter final match loaded down with a few bottles of "Old Git", a popular red wine we used to imbibe during TV sports. By the end of the game those bottles were gone and Wales had lost 28-17; and lost to England to add insult to injury. (England famously went on to win the Webb-Ellis Trophy that year.) We were both in a dismal mood as I left the house Barry shared with his wife and stepson to make my way home. Then I did something rather strange. To this day I can't recall exactly why I made the decision, probably from my sadness mixed with drunkenness, but I chose to travel home a rather unusual way. Barry lived in Cutteslowe, a district in the far north of Oxford. Dissecting the city from north to south is the River Cherwell, a tributary of the Thames/Isis. Instead of heading for Banbury Road to catch a bus or walk down the pavement into town, I headed for the Cherwell in the hope of walking down its bank into the city. I knew that there was a path along the river bank from where the river reached the University Parks. The problem was, I had no idea if there was any pedestrian route of any description between there and Cutteslowe. Before I had walked less than an hour I discovered that there was not; but being very stubborn and determined, I kept going. I struggled through some rather muddy pastures being eyed up by some very intimidating bulls and eventually came to a stream flowing into the Cherwell from the left, the side I was walking. It wasn't a wide stream, maybe a dozen feet; therefore I conjectured that it must be fairly shallow. I decided to wade across it; after all I had come that far and would rather get wet feet than walk all the way back. So I strode out into the water, and discovered that it was much deeper than it looked. Its bed was soft and so I sank in up to my waist. I struggled back onto the bank I'd just left gasping with cold and shock. This was November and the water was freezing. I had no choice now, but to walk back the way I had come, all the way upriver to Cutteslowe. I tried to call Barry and tell him what had happened, but my mobile phone was in my trouser pocket and therefore had been submerged and ruined. I got back to Barry's house about an hour later freezing and dripping. He lent me a spare pair of trousers and allowed me to use his landline to call home. My daughter, aged eight at the time, was a bit worried because nobody had heard from me for about two hours and she was expecting me home. Barry couldn't stop laughing! I knew he would see the funny side of it. I couldn't share his amusement at the time, but did a while later, on reflection. The thing is, Barry never let me forget it. At Christmas his present to me was a rambler's guidebook with a footpath atlas, and... a pair of water-wings! The card read: "Dear Ben. Happy Christmas and I hope this will be of use the next time you go walking while under the affluence of incohol!"
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/finding-barrys-grave.html.

Hospital Grim Reaper

 

Luckily not a real one this time, like we the example we've discussed before, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/12/hospital-pm-scares.html. This time it was an ordinary human being, a man called Leon Gillespie. He decided it would be amusing to climb onto the roof of the Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan, Wales dressed as the Grim Reaper, wearing a black cowl, a mask and carrying a scythe. He stood above the emergency entrance glaring at patients as they were brought in. Gillespie, from the nearby coastal town on Deganwy, was arrested after four police cars and a fire engine arrived; that's more than usually attend a serious on-site crime or fire. He was arrested and pleaded guilty in Llandudno Magistrates Court to causing a nuisance or disturbance on National Health Service premises without a reasonable excuse; and also refusing to leave when directed to by the police and NHS security. He was fined £200. He declined to comment on his motive. The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board made a brief statement to express their outrage. They stated that they maintain a "zero-tolerance approach to abuse, aggression or nuisance on all their hospital sites." They have a "commitment to protecting patients, staff and visitors from disruptive or distressing behaviour." (I doubt that!) I can just see the school-marmish scowls on their faces. Source: https://metro.co.uk/2026/08/05/man-dressed-grim-reaper-climbed-onto-hospital-roof-stared-patients-29302265/. I don't know who exactly Leon Gillespie is, but I must say when I first heard about this story my por-dar was bleeping like a faulty alarm clock. I understand that some people might find this prank rather inappropriate, but it is unfortunately another of those moments when I have to force myself not to laugh. People who serve in our hospitals do develop a dark sense of humour as a defence mechanism, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/07/they-wont-all-get-your-jokes.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/i-really-shouldnt-laugh.html. However that particular form of gallows humour is not shared by the administration... in fact no sense of humour at all can be found anywhere within their parochial and bumptious souls... at least among the minority who haven't sold them.

A Question...

 

Have you ever felt something that I always have: There is a secret. Everybody knows it except me. Everybody else is conspiring to keep it from me; alternatively I'm the only person in the world who cannot comprehend it. When I think about this, I picture myself asking my old telephonist friend Barry about it, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/finding-barrys-grave.html. I'm not sure how he would reply. I don't think I'm suffering from paranoia; I think it's more having an eccentric personality in a large institution; and the NHS is the world's third biggest employer, after India Railways and the People's Liberation Army of China. Conformism and convention are an unspoken essential in such an institution. I sometimes heard a particular question asked when people's names were mentioned: "Is he normal?" The individuals who asked and answered those questions never defined exactly what was meant by the word normal and I actually wonder if they even could. It's one of those "it just is" things; and in fact that is another hospital catchphrase. Maybe it's just human nature. We are a social species and so certain codes of behaviour are essential to cooperate with others, but there are two problems with that theory. The first is that the most important code for social creatures is natural law. This refers to laws present in all human societies without which no human community could function. They include a prohibition against murder, the unlawful ending of another's life; theft of another's property and harm done to their person, unlawful assault. Natural law is not confined to humans. A wolf that broke natural law would be driven away by the rest of the pack. However, the NHS is a rare aberration. Servicepeople who do harm to others, even patients, are tolerated as much as possible. In fact the establishment accommodates them desperately for as long as they can, literally until the national statue law intervenes, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/05/killer-nurses.html. That brings us on to the second problem. At the same time, servicepeople who respect natural law, and even NHS regulations, but also exhibit harmless nonconformist behaviour are swiftly eliminated; for example people who make comedy videos are mopped up within eight days, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/01/thirteen-years-on.html. For this reason it is obvious that from the very start my career in HPing was doomed. If they hadn't kicked me out in 2012 they would have found a way to do it soon afterwards based on another pretext. Deep down I always sensed it. I used to say many times to my partner-at-the-time Susan, whom I called the night I was suspended; sentences that included: "... when they sack me." Not "if". "when". I think this is the secret.

More UCH!

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/07/uch.html.
I have gone back to check out the main entrance and public areas of the University College Hospital in London. It was indeed grand, intimidating and pretentious as I predicted; but it was slightly different to what I expected. It was smaller in terms of footprint, which may simply be inevitable on the crowded ground of such a large city. The main entrance consists of a reception desk on the left, manned solely by civilians, and a very prominent security station opposite; another effect of London society. Between them are rows of public seats; not very comfortable ones, similar to those in A&E, see above. The hospital makes up for the lack of horizontal space by going vertical. The floor is dwarfed by a huge atrium rising about eight to ten floors above it. Like the JR West Wing, the atrium has balconies; this architectural template has unfortunately not gone away. However, perhaps the planners are now finally reading the HPWA because the glass parapets are far taller, over six feet. Still, I think the danger will only be removed when they copy the JRH and install floor-to-ceiling windows, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/12/jumpers-update.html. The back door to the main street is only about fifty feet away and it opens onto Beaumont Place. There is a lift bay to the north side where I found a pair of baryatric wheelchairs parked below a decorative montage of the hospital's history. The lifts carry you to almost all the ward and departmental areas. To the south side is a huge area with the strange name of "Podium". I went there and saw that it was a standard visitors', public and staff rest area combined with a cafeteria and several shops selling the usual newspaper, sweets and snacks. The PALS, patient advice and liaison service, office was tucked into a corner. There are posters everywhere introducing members of staff from all disciplines, but none from portering that I could see. they included a security officer, catering operator, physiotherapist, an orthopaedic doctor, chaplain, nurse and radiographer. There was also a corridor art gallery; another feature of hospitals that seems to be universal, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-bad-art-gallery.html. There was also what looked like a museum cabinet displaying some military medals, presumably awarded to members of staff during wartime. There were also very old documents and letter next to them; I didn't stop to read about any details. There was an internal pharmacy office on the ground floor that had a portable air conditioner, a pipe snaked through the door and the extractor vent was shoved into an overhead duct. The whole place was painted white. Not just pastel with a bit of colour mixed it; it was pure white. After walking around for a while I finally found the most important thing I was looking for, a brother porter. He was dropping off a patient in a wheelchair in the public seating area. His uniform was dark blue and he wore a name badge saying "Peter" with the word "porter" in smaller print below it. I said: "I'm one of you! A hospital porter at the John Radcliffe, Oxford. Pride and dignity, brother!" I saluted him. Peter looked confused. He was young and clearly a recent African immigrant. He didn't reply, but he did smile back at me. For some reason the open area directly outside the main entrance on Euston Road is decorated by what looked like a giant pebble. I found my very brief visit to the UCH interesting, but rather dismaying. The place is bland, corporate, tense and cheap. The decorations and pretty pictures did not solve those matters. My dismay is not mixed with surprise.

They Won't All Get Your Jokes

 

As I've noted several times, if you are a HP or indeed in any acute healthcare profession, it's likely you will develop an unusual sense of humour, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/03/rose-cottage-humour.html. Unfortunately not everybody will understand your sense of humour if they have not shared your unique experience of such service. This can easily lead to misunderstandings and offence. You have to be careful whom you share some of your hospital jokes with. Case in point: I was on a patients' forum a while ago, one which I won't identify, when somebody was telling the story of their endoscopy appointment. Endoscopy is a medical technique in which a doctor examines the inside of a patient's body using a small electronic camera. It is an alternative to diagnostic surgery. It is far less invasive and can usually be done in outpatients. It has only been carried out for a couple of decades because the technology has only recently been invented. The most common kind of procedure is to insert the camera, called an endoscope, into a body cavity such as the mouth, anus, vagina, urethra etc. One of the forum members was talking openly about his anal examination and I wrote as a reply: "I once dated a woman from endoscopy. She was surprisingly vanilla in bed!" This went down like a lead balloon. Nobody openly criticized me for it, I received no PM's from the moderator; but the usual replies and reactions were absent indicating the social media equivalent of a stony silence. I deleted my comment and things went back to normal. The joke I had made was one distinctly embedded in hospital culture. Jokes are funnier when you don't have to explain them, but maybe I should have just left it on the thread and posted an apology-stroke-explanation below it. It compares the practices of endoscopy to extreme sexual activity; bondage, S&M etc. The term "vanilla" was used by one of the characters in the book Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James, a bestseller about violent sex. It means normal sex without the violence... As the late great Frankie Howerd used to say, please yourselves! I really should have known better, but I can be a bit insensitive at times when reading other people on forums. Hope readers can avoid my mistake.

One for the Fesshole

 

The Fesshole is a social media phenomenon which acts as an outlet for people to reveal dark secrets and wrongdoings they have committed; funny not criminal. It is short for "confession hole" and probably refers to the anonymous opening in a church confessional between where the priest sits and his parishioner. A friend made me aware of it and some of its content is hilariously embarrassing; therefore the least I could do is contribute to it myself, and I have the perfect ingredient. Sometime back in the '90's I was having a drunken night in with some brother HP's and a few hangers on. It started in the social club after the 2-10 had finished and ended up in Arthur Sanctuary House, the main staff accommodation block. One of the revellers was called Oswald, not his real name. He was not a porter and was not even on the civilian staff. How he became attached to JRH society was always a bit of a mystery. He ended up marrying a nurse, but that was years later. Anyway, a nurse's dress made its appearance... somehow and Oswald put it on. This was for a joke of course, except he kept it on all night. (He eventually turned out to be bisexual, leaning heavily on the homo side; and that was not a surprise to anybody who knew him in those days.) We eventually left ASH and took a raucous stroll through the hospital grounds. This was relegated to the nearby streets after security threw us out. I can't quite recall what happened after that except that at about 3 AM I found myself wandering home carrying Oswald's stolen nurse's dress.

In those days I lived with my parents shortly after splitting up with my daughter's mother and when I got home everybody was asleep at that hour. I can't remember my thought processes, or what passed for them after about five pints of cider and a dozen vodka shots, but I decided to put the dress in the laundry basket. I think I just wanted to see what happened if I did. It took about two days and then my mother called me into the lounge where she was reclined in her armchair as usual. "Ben, could you come here for a moment please?" She always addressed me like a head porter summoning me to the office. "Ben, I found something strange while doing the washing; it looks like a nurse's uniform. Do you know how it got there?" I shook my head and replied: "No idea, mum." I was desperately suppressing the urge to laugh, and she knew it. My mother was disabled by a condition that was never identified, but it resembled multiple sclerosis and worsened steadily during her lifetime. As a result she suffered a lot of frustration by not being able to do much physical activity. By the time she died in 2006 she could barely walk a dozen steps. I think this was the main reason she was extremely paranoid, controlling and nosy. She wanted to know every single thing that went on in the house and in our lives. She continuously criticized everybody else over everything we did. She once challenged me because she thought I had been running a tap in the bathroom too hard. She worked this out by listening from the bottom of the stairs. Her ears were like a bat's. The problem was she always had absolute conviction in her own conclusions and believed she was incapable of making a mistake. Once she had decided on something she never changed her mind. As a result a lot of her judgements were wrong. I found this very bothersome. I think this was why I decided to plant the nurse's dress in the laundry. I knew she would find out and her brain would immediately start spinning like a flywheel to come up with some kind of explanatory model for how this situation had come about. I wanted some payback and gained a lot of catharsis from it. (This was for many other reasons to do with my terrible relationship with her.) She stared at me suspiciously while I struggled to keep a straight face. She frowned. "Are you sure, Ben?" "A hundred percent, mum." I responded. There was a long pause in which she glared at me balefully. "Alright, you can go now." Immediately afterwards I heard her on the phone talking to Isabel, her unofficial stepmother. I couldn't hear all the words, but I could guess the gist of the conversation: "A, B or C has happened. It's all Ben's fault and he is lying about it!" The phone-call lasted about an hour. I deliberately avoided moving closer to hear the words because it would have caused me a lot of emotional pain; see here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/10/am-i-gate-child.html. After that my father came home for work and it was his turn on the stretching rack. There were no raised voices. Arguments between my parents were always calmly one-sided. My mother accused and attacked, and my father just bowed his head took the shit. At one point I heard him say: "I really know nothing about this, Marga!" She didn't believe him. They themselves had a very rocky marriage involving all kinds of ménage à plusieurs that I won't describe in detail because it involves more painful childhood memories. If you're curious, this is a where I have covered some of it previously: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/10/peter-croft-and-ben-emlyn-jones.html. That was not the end of it. For about three weeks afterwards my mother drove herself into a frenzy trying to solve The Mystery of the Appearing Nurse's Dress. At one point I overheard her talking to her friends that she suspected my father of having an affair with one of the domiciliary nurses who cared for her. I was tempted at that point to come clean, but my bitterness stopped me. For most of my life I had resented my parents enormously; my mother for her malice and my father for his weakness. So I left the outrage to play itself out. Did I enjoy it? Yes, I had to giggle continuously under the blankets on my bed so nobody could hear me. Do I feel guilty? Maybe slightly, but not to any great degree. This all happened about thirty years ago. Eventually the storm blew over and our family returned to normal. I retrieved the dress from the washing machine and returned it to Uniform Issue. There you have it! I've confessed! Not that it makes any difference. My mother and Isabel are dead and my father never reads the HPWA. Still, I hope you who do so enjoyed this little acknowledgment of misdemeanour.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/02/humiliation-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html.

The Weirdest HP Job of All

 

Almost a week has now passed since the opening of Disclosure Day and so anybody who is really hardcore about its themes will almost certainly have seen it. See here for my review without spoilers: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/06/disclosure-day-day.html and with spoilers: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/06/disclosure-day-film-review.html. Therefore I can talk about its content more openly now, but this article is also a spoiler just in case you don't want it; so feel free to stop reading till after you've watched the film. The final scene is, of course, full of amazing imagery and tension. It's hard to analyze everything that happens in those climactic few minutes, but I was surprised to find it includes a hospital portering element. What happens while the unscheduled historic TV broadcast is underway is that a wheelchair arrives in the studio. I can't remember if it is Hugo himself who pushes it or somebody else; whoever they are, they are the most unusual HP ever! You see, the wheelchair is covered by what looks like a small oblong builders' tent. This is unzipped and under that there is a strange dome shaped metal contraption and when that is moved aside you see it is protecting a tall grey alien. I'm not an expert on ET medicine, but I got the impression that the creature is old and in bad health, in fact it might be from the Roswell incident which would make it at least eighty years old. In the previous scene outside the TV centre while the viewer's attention is focused on the bad guys and good guys fighting over the electrical supply, you see a mysterious white lorry pull up round the back. It turns out that it is ferrying the alien in its wheelchair. The alien gets to its feet with the help of a built-in hoist and in the last couple of minutes of the film, it interacts with the people in the studio. It is incredible that Steven Spielberg's latest summer blockbuster pays homage to we proud and dignified HP's and even suggests we could play a role in the most incredible revelation the world has ever seen. If it ever happens for real, could I please wheel in the alien?
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/02/ufo-disclosure-portal.html.

Why Do People Hate Me?

 

Surely I'm not the only one who experiences this? You know somebody and they truly despise you. Maybe it's for a reason; you've done something bad to them and they can't forgive you. However, very often it's a baseless hatred with no motive at all; you've done them no harm at all, and you might not even know them very well. For me this used to happen all the time. Probably over half the people I interacted with responded in this way. In my case I know what the source of that ire was, I just didn't understand it. It very often arose after that "popping the question" moment, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/10/popping-question-responses.html. Their face turns into a blank stare and they stop talking to me. Very often they leave the conversation and try to avoid me afterwards. Sometimes they don't actually "pop the question" to me directly, their behaviour changes when they hear about my answer through the grapevine. "Have you heard Ben is proud to be a hospital porter?"... "Oh my God, no! How could he!? He has no such right!" This loathing can reach truly obsessive levels. It happens especially online, but I don't know if that's because the trolls hate me more than other people or just because it's easier and safer to express feelings over cyberspace. For example, when I got discharged from the NHS, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/01/thirteen-years-on.html, one of my trolls created a new social media account, seeing as I had blocked all his others and he knew I would block this one too, specially so he could gloat about it. He said: "I hear you've lost your job, Ben. I'd just like you to know that I'm currently having a champagne breakfast to celebrate." I always found this vitriol incomprehensible. If I am proud to be a HP what makes them the injured party in that situation? I've come across a YouTube channel that is fascinating. It is packed with information that I've never heard before; needless to say I've subscribed. It's based on the work of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and one of the videos is called Why People Hate You for No Reason- The Brutal Truth by Friedrich Nietzsche. It is the best attempt I've ever come across to answer this conundrum.
 
According to Nietzsche, the negativity is their problem. It's not about you; it's about their feelings towards themselves. You are simply the means by which they can see elements of themselves that they otherwise ignore and hide from. To be a proud and dignified HP has certain implications; it means that you feel positive about yourself and your occupation without peer approval or admiration from wider society. Many other people deep down would like to feel the same way about themselves, but they can't. They need external validation from their community and they understand what a precarious position that is. Yet they can't admit it because they lack introspective awareness; they are what are commonly known as "NPC's", see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2022/04/ben-emlyn-jones-on-msp-second-series.html (Programme 337). For this reason the only way they can deal with it is react with jealousy and hostility towards the proud and dignified HP for making them feel that way. Another problem is that most people are what Robert Anton Wilson called "neophobes", afraid of change, taking comfort and feeling secure in normality and stability. A proud and dignified HP inevitably rocks the boat. The sad thing is, all people who have advanced human beings as a species have had to endure the hardship of being resented for forcing their companions out of that comfort zone. Whether it was the caveman who found a new and better way of carving stone; or the inventor who thought alternating current would work better than direct current, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-current-war-film-review.html. Just think what we could achieve if we valued mavericks instead of denouncing them! Also proud and dignified HP's are, virtually by definition, self-confident. Those who lack self-confidence may feel envy towards those who do because, deep down, they suffer from their fear. "They see the world through the lens of their own wounds", as Nietzsche said. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqBUFJvGv0. This, of course, does not only apply to HP's; anybody can be in this position. I think my comment under the video says it all: "Well, that comprehensively solves one of the biggest mysteries of my life!" This revelation has actually been of some consolation to me. It's also reduced my own reciprocal feelings of anger towards the ODP's and others who gave me a hard time, especially "Jack Shaw", see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html. I've also lost a lot of the arrogance this tension generated, arrogance I never knew I was expressing beforehand. I now feel more compassionate towards my aggravating acquaintances.

Happy St Theo's Day 2026!

 

On behalf of every serving hospital porter, every former hospital porter, and everybody else who loves, appreciates and supports us, with all the Pride and Dignity of my Extremely Proud and Dignified Brother and Sister Porters, I'd like to wish all my friends and readers, a very happy St Theo's Day.
See here for The Gas Spanner St Theo 2026: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-gas-spanner-programme-163.html.

Where Does This Meme Come From?

 

I've found a very interesting image. It was on a Facebook group I've joined that opposes Digital ID. As you can see, it depicts a street protest in London against the scheme and in the foreground are a row of NHS servicepeople; two nurses, a doctor and a paramedic. There is one further character that is distinct because he is a hospital porter and his back is turned to the viewer. He appears to be pushing a trolley between the two nurses. In a strange way it, at first glance, it looks like the porter is giving a speech to the crowd and his NHS colleagues. The man looks nothing like me, he is slimmer and has a good head of hair; however, I suspect the meme is based on me. I don't know who made it and they have not contacted me. These days artistic talent is not necessary to make good artwork and this was probably created by an artificial intelligence art system. I'm glad to have provided inspiration for this picture. I do oppose Digital ID passionately. I have done so since my daughter's school tried to take her fingerprints, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-is-drawing-done-by-my-12-year-old.html. Since that happened the Big Brother surveillance state has grown. At some NHS hospitals they are now forcing staff to register their fingerprints and a scanner like the one at the school is used to clock in and out and even log tasks.

It's Changed!

 

My family has recently suffered a very upsetting experience, my daughter's uncle has died; not my own brother, her mother's brother. He was seventy-five years old and has been in very poor health for several years, but he was definitely one of the closest members of my extended family. I reported on this during the last two episodes of The Gas Spanner, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-gas-spanner-programme-159.html and: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-gas-spanner-programme-160.html. We called an ambulance for him last Friday week and he was taken to the JRH Emergency Department. From there he went to the Emergency Assessment Unit and was put into a side room. I didn't say anything to the family at the time, but I knew from my experience that at that point the doctors had little hope for his recovery. He was kept comfortable for four days and then he peacefully passed away. That's all I wish to say about him right now, but I would like to comment on what it was like to visit the John Radcliffe Hospital for the first time in many years. It has totally and utterly changed, mostly for the worst. The ED has been completely reorganized with the triage area where the resuscitation room used to be and a new resus near the major side doors. I don't know why this was done, but I do know that there's a cast iron rule that anything in the NHS that's not broken always has to be fixed. The place generally looks far more compact and crowded with less open space. The waiting room is sealed off from the rest of the unit by heavy duty locked doors, a system I noticed also during my recent visit to a London hospital, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/07/uch.html. I assumed this was just local practice in the capital, but it obviously is nationwide.

On my second visit to my daughter's uncle on the Saturday I walked there and entered ED directly from the outside. It has something strange surrounding the entrance ramp that I've not seen before. It looks to me like a high security fence, but designed not to look like one, similarly to the "lorry ramming of peace" barriers you see in major cities that are all done up with flower pots and artwork. I got the feeling this fence is designed to have barbed wire on the top of it if needed, but the Oxford University Hospitals Trust (it's changed its name from Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust) aren't going to unless it is "politically necessary". Despite that, the new ED does have the atmosphere of a military camp. The Illustration above very out-of-date. Inside there was a much denser security presence than there used to be with a guard visible all the time. One of them recognized me and said hello. He used to be a porter, but has since been promoted... if you can call it that. On our first visit, the Friday afternoon, I went to the main hospital entrance and was greeted by a civilian receptionist who was most unhelpful. She was clearly doing her best, but seemed unable to locate the patient we asked for. She made two phone calls and then wrote down a phone number on a scrap of paper for us to call. This is absurd. The main duty of the receptionist, whether desk porter or civilian, is to direct visitors to the part of the hospital they are trying to find. This should be very simple; they are supposed to have a database of all the patients' locations in front of them; and it used to take just a few seconds to search and pinpoint the ward or department the visitor is looking for. What on earth has gone wrong? Ironically the Trust has spent over a million pounds revamping the entire entrance and main street area so that it looks like some kind of designer shopping centre/hotel lobby/airport lounge combination; yet at the same time its basic and necessary practical aspects have fallen into total dysfunction. Do they think if they simply shock-and-awe us enough with stained glass panels, polished beach screens and stripy floor lino we will not notice how downright crappy the service is? My ex-partner, my daughter's mother, is disabled and can only walk a few dozen yards so I had to find a wheelchair for her. There were none at all in the public pool, but luckily I then met a brother porter who recognized me and he showed me their secret stash in Outpatients. I asked him where the lodge was these days and he said: "There is no lodge"; that doesn't surprise me, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/08/new-lodge.html. My brother HP was dressed in the uniform issued by Mitie; it has changed the traditional light blue shirt to white, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-mitie-hps.html. To say that I was dissatisfied with my experience at the JRH is such an understatement I can hardly describe it. I would like to put in a complaint, but where would I begin? Maybe it's because I've come back after so long that I notice things people who have been there all this time don't because it's crept up on them slowly, like the classic frog in a saucepan analogy. Even if I hadn't been visiting under such tragic circumstances I'd have been dismayed, but I was. All I can do now is hope and pray I don't have to return there again anytime soon. 

"Hello There!"

 

I've come across a very strange video short. Oddly enough I first encountered it on a YouTube ad. It was for an artificial intelligence animation studio called Filmcrux and this demo material is a short, just two minutes and eighteen seconds long. It is very lifelike. Modern animation is actually difficult to distinguish from live action these days. It has a graphic content warning because it is extremely violent. Even though it's not real and doesn't even involve real actors, some viewers might find it disturbing. Hello There takes place in a hospital, one called "Glenlake asylum" and it's "1956". A patient is being pushed along a corridor. Even though he is sitting up in a wheelchair there are two porters with him. Is that normal practice in mental health? He says nothing else, but he keeps repeating the phrase "hello there" over and over again. Suddenly the lights start flickering and there are spooky noises on the soundtrack. The patient starts choking. One of the porters asks him if he's okay and the man just looks at him and repeats "hello there." Then the porter appears to go into a seizure and the other HP asks his brother if he's okay. The first porter then says "hello there" just like the patient and attacks his colleague, biting a hole in his cheek. The man slumps to the floor, apparently dead. The first porter, called Bob, then walks off and enters a porters' lodge. A policeman is sitting and the table and asks Bob if he's alright. Bob takes an axe from a mounting of the wall and kills the policeman with it. He runs back out into the passage and sees a nurse. She screams and bolts and Bob, covered in blood from his previous two victims, chases after her. There is chirpy jazz music in the score. The title shot is a very retro scene of a pleasant '50's street, but the title text "HELLO THERE" is dripping with blood. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQcEPEetEI0. The description box says:
"'Hello There' will be the last thing you ever hear.
A wild AI horror short film made with TapNow AI. @tapnow.ai_official
'Hello There' is a retro-inspired paranormal possession slasher horror film.
All made with TapNow AI using Kling 3.0.
TapNow is a professional AI creative engine for video creators and filmmakers.
They have all the latest AI models, and it's incredibly easy to use, even though it's a node-based AI platform.
Even though they recently launched Seedance 2.0 on TapNow as well, this entire film was created without it.
'Hello There' is an AI proof of concept written and directed by Lion El Aton for FILM CRUX.
We're going to be entering this in TapNow's 10,000 Parallel Universes contest.
They're currently accepting entries, so join now.
#tapnow #taptv #createinpublic #tapchallenge #horror".
The need for human actors seems to be diminishing. Could all the Hollywood stars be made redundant? Probably not, simply out of principle. In fact there is already a Luddite, purist movement in TV and cinematic community against replacement by our robot overlords. There was even recently a strike by scriptwriters to save their jobs. I understand that totally. I dislike AI used in that way because it is fundamentally a deception, a falsehood, as I've said before. It's why Spike Jonze's film Her film so disturbed me, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/06/her.html. Is it a compliment or an insult that the first in a series of the most sophisticated new AI created films features HP's?

Gulf War Bomb Scare

 

In January 1991 Operation Desert Storm began. A coalition of forty-two nations invaded Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. As always, the John Radcliffe was assigned to care for the injured soldiers from that war. We were put onto a special routine, setting up an entire ward and commandeering two operating theatres in the main JRII suite for the purpose, with the help of the Royal Medical Corp. I missed out on a lot of that "action", something to my chagrin seeing I was in my youthful gung ho mood at the time. I remained in my department, Delivery Suite. All I could hope for was for some overtime away from it. As it happened I did become very involved, much more so than I would have liked, and in the most unexpected place. My overtime was unfortunately not in JRII, but I was instead deployed to the JRI lodge, this was pre-Women's Centre when it was purely Maternity. Gynaecology had yet to move up from the Churchill. The senior porter was away so I acted as "desk porter". I groaned; this was one of the most tedious jobs a JRH porter could do. How wrong I was! At one point in the shift, in the afternoon, I noticed a travel bag sitting in the entrance airlock which was clearly visible from our desk. I suddenly remembered a memorandum we had been sent in which the Department of Health had been told by the police and intelligence services that, because of the Gulf War, terrorists might target hospitals in use by the military. I gasped in fear, but I'm pleased to say I did not panic and immediately got on the hotline to security. The guard who picked up was somebody I knew, and I spoke clearly and calmly: "John! (Not his real name) You better get over here..." He interrupted: "We know, Ben. We can see it on CCTV. We're on our way. Could you go and stand in the airlock to keep the public away?" I obeyed before I realized what I was doing. They wanted me to move towards the bomb and stand next to it! I was terrified, but somehow managed it. I braced myself in case it detonated, which was pretty futile considering it was six feet away. I was comforted by the fact that Maternity was just a three minute dash from the security station so I wouldn't have to face this peril for very long. The men who were paid to take these risks would appear and take over very soon. I looked at my watch. Three minutes passed; then four, then five. It then occurred to me that the security staff were not dashing; they were taking their time. They had obviously decided to skip the dangerous duty themselves by getting Ben to risk it. After about another two minutes I saw John and one of his colleagues casually strolling up the hill from the car park, having walked the long way round. At the same time a man appeared and knocked on the sliding doors, which I had locked. "Could I come in and get my bag please?" I unlocked the doors. It turns out he was a new father who was so excited about his new baby that the bag had slipped his mind and he had abandoned it there. He and the security guys all converged on my location at the same time. I honestly was not sure who to be most angry with! I never trusted security again.

AI on The Spanner

 

I asked Google AI: "Is there a radio show called 'The Gas Spanner'?"

It answered:
Yes, there is a podcast titled The Gas Spanner.
The show is hosted on platforms like Spreaker and Rumble and typically discusses topics related to hospital portering, healthcare, and trade-related issues. It is often associated with the HPANWO (Hospital Porters Against New World Order) network and the HPWA (Hospital Porters Welfare Association). It is presented by Ben Emlyn-Jones who also produces HPANWO and the HPWA. Unlike Emlyn-Jones' other podcast, HPANWO Radio, The Gas Spanner generally does not address conspiracy theories, UFO's or paranormal topics, except when they relate directly to healthcare, such as with haunted hospitals. "The Spanner", as it is affectionately known, has a more relaxed and "off duty" proceedings in which Emlyn-Jones relates anecdotes of his experiences while working as a hospital porter, which he usually abbreviates as "HP". It has a small but very loyal circle of listeners. Emlyn-Jones converses and takes questions from live listeners in the "chat box", a live chat app. He takes great care to make all shows available afterwards as a free podcast.

Pretty accurate I'd say. Don't forget to tune in every Sunday at 8 PM. If you miss it live, check out the podcast: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com.

I've Found Another 2P

See here for essential background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/01/twopence-bag.html.

I'm rich!... Just kidding of course; however, this could be a sign that I am, in a different way to the usual meaning of the word. As I explain in the background article, I am interested in synchronicity and portents. The experience back in January was significant enough; and now, guess what, it's happened again. I was walking along a street near the entrance to a recreation ground when I noticed something lying on top of one of the bollards. It was a twopence piece identical to the one I found before, except this one was a bit scratched. This damage does not stop it being legal tender, but I will probably not spend it. I feel the need to keep it as a talisman. The coin was lying on top of the bollard, as you can see in the photo. This means it cannot have just been dropped accidentally; somebody placed it there deliberately. I have no idea who. I don't often reveal details of my personal life, especially when it comes to work; trolls will try to exploit me if I'm too open about that. This time, however, I'm going to reveal where these coin discoveries happened. The entrance to the park is on Spencer Crescent in Rose Hill, Oxford. The first finding was just a couple of hundred yards away on the same road close to its junction with Ashurst Way. As I said in January, the odds of this happening randomly are very slim. What it means, I'm not sure; but this kind of happening is always some kind of communication. Usually it's a good thing, a reassurance.